


Category Ten: Xander/Multiple

by beetle



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 18:54:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten relationships in Xander's life. See below for the rules of the Ten Songs meme.</p>
<p>The Rules:<br/>1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.<br/>2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.<br/>3. Write a drabble/ficlet related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!<br/>4. Do ten of these, then post them.</p>
<p>Characters: Xander, others (gen, slash, het)<br/>Rating: R</p>
            </blockquote>





	Category Ten: Xander/Multiple

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Set Pre-, During-, and Post both series.

**Sublime: Same In The End**

  
  
Some kids' dads are deadbeat.  
  
Xander's often envied those kids. Like, envied the  _shit_  outta them.  
  
Hell,  _both_  Willow's parents are gone more than they're not. Xander's mom calls Willow: “that poor neglected little Jewish girl.  
  
Xander calls Willow: “the luckiest little Jewish girl on the planet.”  
  
At least to himself, anyway. He'd learned early on that not everything his parents said about other families was meant or taken well.  
  
  


**Placido Domingo: Man of La Mancha**

  
  
It felt good, winning.  
  
“But don't get used to it,” the new boy, Jesse huffed and puffed, hunched over, hands braced on his knees at the finish line. Next to him and equally winded, Xander grinned, though it faltered and sidled like a skittish salamander.  
  
Years later, he'd reflect that on first sight, Jesse knew and would always know him better than anyone.  
  
 _Don't get used to winning._  
  
He named Xander, that day, and so became his truest friend.  
  
  


**Gin Blossoms: Cajun Song**

  
  
The first Christmas in the backyard is maybe the best. It isn't white, or silent. But it's safe.  
  
No one will go running through this yard with a steak-knife, or blender, threatening to clean someone's clock.  
  
 _Most likely_ , they won't.  
  
And soon, Xander's got better than a white Christmas. He's got white noise. The kind that means for awhile, the family he's just beginning to hate has stopped existing.  
  
In their place, Xander creates his own family from the amorphous shadows in the distance. He can't see their faces, and they don't say much. He likes it that way.  
  
  


**James Brown: Come Over Here**

  
  
The first time he and Jesse get blitzed, it's Jim Beam who does the blitzing.  
  
Willow'd left the sleepover (which, at twelve, they were getting too old for, anyway) earlier, saying she wanted nothing to do with them if they were going to be drinking.  
  
He and Jesse stagger around giggling and laughing, and . . . and . . . for the first time ever, Xander can understand why his parents do this so much. Being drunk feels really good, feels . . . like Jesse's spitty, nervous lips on his own, shy and insistent. Feels like Xander can't quite breathe right, and like his stomach is filled with butterflies, and--  
  
It feels like he pukes right on Jesse's face.  
  
They don't talk about it—any of it—later. Xander's parents don't notice the missing bottle.  
  
  


**Frederic Chopin: Some Damn Nocturne**

  
  
Her name is Lisa Barnhart and she's . . . beautiful. Xander can't stop talking about her.  
  
“Outta your league, bro,” Jesse says, clapping Xander's shoulder without taking his eyes off Cordelia.  
  
“Maybe  _Xander's_  out of  _her_  league,” Willow ventures, turning her thousand watt, ten-puppy smile on him. Xander feels both appreciated and warmed down to his toes.  
  
“You're my  _smart_  friend,” Xander tells her, and Jesse snorts. Then Tucker Wells scurries by, looking intense and unhappy as always.  
  
“Betcha one day, he opens fire during an assembly or something,” Jesse says, making a weird face. But then, all Jesse's faces are kinda weird. Which Xander likes.  
  
“No takers,” he says, and that's it for Lisa Barnhart. He's finally stopped talking about her, and when she doesn't show up for class the next day, or the next, he forgets about her slowly, but entirely.  
  
Welcome to Sunndayle, population . . . why bother counting?  
  
  


**Queen: We Are The Champions**

  
  
_We are the champions. . . ._  
  
It's what's playing on the radio as the new librarian—or, Watcher, whatever—drives him and Willow home after all the craziness at the Bronze.  
  
Buffy was the first he dropped off, since her mother'd pitch a bitch. Willow's next, because for once, her parents are home. Then Xander, because as always, he could be missing for a week, and his parents wouldn't care, even if they noticed.  
  
So, after everything . . . Xander simply goes home. To the place he hates most, to people he'd put in the ground a thousand times over just to have five minutes with Jesse. Five minutes. Just five minutes to say. . . .  
  
To  _do_. . . .  
  
Xander doesn't even know what. He doesn't know anything, anymore.  
  
 _. . . no time for losers, 'cos we are the champions. . . ._  
  
Never has a song felt less appropriate.  
  
  


**The Presidents of The United States of America: Boll Weevil**

  
  
He could kill them.  
  
Bigfatfatherman, smell of fermentation and bruises, and cringingsadsmilemotherwoman lingering around the cave like sickness and uselessness, her breeding days long gone.  
  
Wouldn't need knives to do it, or guns that go bang and alert other packs, no. He doesn't need that, never needs that! He has all he needs to work killing on outsiders. He has good teeth and strongcleverangry fingers that need to pry and take apart. Fingers and teeth that need to see and taste inside. Better tools than slice! or bang! because they're always always always with him and he could kill them now, if he wanted, he could, if. . . .  
  
. . . the smell of matespackpridehome wasn't calling him, with soft yips and manic laughter.  
  
He could kill them, the outsiders, but he doesn't need to. All he needs is  _pack_.  
  
  


**Soundgarden: Half**

  
  
All the voices sound strange and distorted. Too high and too far away, though all the leering faces are too close, too flushed with alcohol and lust.  
  
Nothing he does is ever enough for them. It's having an audience full of his parents. And his teachers. And yes, his friends, even his closest ones.  
  
He's disappointment in a speedo, shaking his ass for whatever money is thrown—and there ain't much. Not in this cheap dive, where the drinks are watered, and the shitty goddamn songs seem to last forever.  
  
When his set finally ends, Xander scrabbles for every bill he can get, flashing his useless, nervous, toothy smile at every guy around the stage.  
  
This is his fifth night on, and he's still nowhere  _near_  what he needs to fix his POS car.  
  
“Hey, kid. Kid. I gotta real nice Buick parked in the back lot . . . I could, uh, make it worth your while.”  
  
Xander narrows his eyes and keeps them on the ones he's chasing after on the greasy, dirty floor. Fucking Oxnard.  
  
Sweaty hand on his sweaty ass that Xander ignores. It stopped freaking him out about five hundred gropes ago. “C'mon, kid. One hundred's a lotta money.”  
  
It is. And so was eighty. And the night before that, fifty was the offer, though admittedly just for his mouth.  
  
Xander keeps ignoring the guy and hurries backstage.  
  
He's not good at haggling, but like Uncle Rory says:  _what we don't know, life'll sure teach us._  
  
Long after he's showered, he still feels that hand on him.  
  
  


**Rush: Something For Nothing**

  
  
He'd have done anything to keep her. Even marry her.  
  
The sheer amount of mindfuck he'd worked on himself to completely hide how shit-scared he was of marriage—of becoming like _him_ \--should've been more proof of his love than any damn wedding, right? Right?  
  
Drowning in crappy motel, in crappy beer, in crappy self-pity, he's cried and shaken, sobbed and even screamed a time or two. Every time he closes his eyes, he can see her in that wedding dress . . . stupid, silly, beautiful dress, and she'd been radiant, glowing (possibly literally) with happiness. Till she wasn't, and it was all his fault, and how had they  _not_  seen this hurt coming?  
  
This disappointment?  
  
Granted he'd only known her a few years, and Buffy a few years more than that, but they should've known. From experience. They should've know that on the rare chance that Xander Harris follows through with a plan, it's an unimitigated disaster, and that he loves her far too much to put her through that.  
  
They have to know, all of them, especially  _her_  . . . that he was  _saving her_. From worse disappointment. Worse hurt. Saving her from becoming a cringing, sad-smiled mother-woman, whose only relief from the life she was trapped in was the nearest, fullest bottle.  
  
Couldn't she  _see_ , that he'd saved her—saved them  _both_  from becoming his parents?  
  
  


**Vangelis: Damask Rose**

  
  
Each huff and puff is distinct and clear, an ode to life. A sacrifice of warmth and breath.  
  
Each huff is entrancing, each puff lovely, and each moment is one that he is lost in.  
  
“'lo?” Gradations of dark and light that move in front of his closed eyelids so quickly, he might not be able to follow them, even if he wished to. Thankfully, he does not. He's ceased to want or need or even think, if he doesn't have to. He lives in every moment fully, lets it carry him where it will. “Anyone home, in there? Bloody hell. Bloody hell, what's wrong with him?”  
  
“We don't know, and we've been trying to wake him for weeks. So far? The big bagel,” another voice says, female and familiar. “Willow's going bonkers, and Buffy's killing her way through every cemetery in Johannesburg.”  
  
“Silly bints. Bet I can think of one thing you  _haven't_  tried yet. . . .”  
  
“Wha-- _oh_. Please, are you kidding me?  _Everyone_ 's tried  _that_. Buffy, Willow, me, Robin, Mr. Giles—and Andrew tried at least six times. And that was just on his last lunch break. What makes you think--?”  
  
Something's touching his mouth, soft and warm. Breath, heavy with moisture and life, filling him with too much of the same, and he inhales deeply, though he's unused to it, and there's something in his mouth, wet and squirmy, prodding his tongue into motion, and arms that he'd thought he was free off are struggling to hold. To pull closer, because he  _wants_.  
  
His eye opens. Is captured by blue like a summer evening, though they're reddened, too, and wet. Xander suddenly understands.  
  
He'd gone to sleep.  
  
He'd forgot.  
  
He'd  _let go_.  
  
Lips are curving against his own in a slow, dirty leer. “Was beginnin' to wonder if I'd lost m' touch.” Spike kisses him again. A warm, pleasantly heavy, pleasantly  _other_ body settles on Xander's own, and to the right of his bed, there's an insane amount of happy, supersonic squealing.  
  
“Welcome back, Harris,” Spike murmurs on his lips and Xander laughs, hoarse and weak. Laughs, and inhabits each kiss like it's the life he's always wanted.  
  
“It's good to be back, Spike.”


End file.
